Racing With the Flu

Yesterday was a rough day for me. I woke up at 1:30am with another stomach bug. I had a very sore stomach and was able to get back to sleep after a couple of hours but woke up in the morning still feeling like I could hurl at any moment.

I made it to the race site telling myself that I would allow myself to race as long as I didn't throw up and was able to stay on my feet during warm-up. Warm-up proved to be slow but possible, so I burped my way to the start line, did a few running sprints, and went for it.

Racing with the flu was a weird feeling... almost an out of body experience. My brain was so focused on keeping everything in equilibrium that I hardly even noticed the chorus of cheers coming from the crowd lining the course or the advise that our coaches were shouting. I just knew that I had to race 3 laps of the course, keep up a pretty solid pace, keep from red lining early in the race, and not let anything else get under my skin because I was just barely holding on. So I blocked everything else out and just raced. Me, my skis, and the snow.

Classic skiing comes pretty naturally to me (I know, I know, cocky, but it's kinda true) so it was pretty easy for me to just put my body into auto pilot and ski. I finished the race in 22nd, walked back to the wax room and lay on the floor until someone could drive us home. I made it home, climbed the stairs to my room, walked right into the bathroom and puked.

This wasn't exactly how I had planned to race yesterday, but it just goes to show you that if you want something bad enough you can do it under any circumstances. Hopefully my body will be feeling a lot better in tomorrow's 15km pursuit!